Site Update: Content warnings, suggest links, news capsule

New Hub Warnings - We now display automated warnings on hubs identified to be in areas where rules violations are common. These are the first step toward implementing some of the rules changes described on the HubPages blog last week. Please click on the warning to learn more about that particular area. They are intended, in conjunction with some upcoming Hub Tool changes, to help educate authors about the HubPages rules as early as possible in the publishing process as possible so that violations can be avoided. The appearance of one of these warnings does not necessarily mean that there is a problem with your Hub.

Tomorrow, we will unveil some additional warnings related to the upcoming changes and begin emailing people a complete list of issues in their hubs. As before, you will be given a couple of weeks to make the necessary corrections before we begin slowly unpublishing hubs that are still problematic.

News capsule - You can no longer add new News Capsules to your Hubs. They are going to be eliminated completely in a couple of weeks.

Suggested Links Tool - We no longer pre-select phrases for you from your Hub. You now have to choose your own places to add links, which we think will result in better constructed hubs.

I just got done reading the "Upcoming Policy Changes" and I just want to say I am extremenly pleased that HubPages is taking such a strong initiative to assure that the good writers here are rewarded and not dragged down by poor hubs on the site anymore.

I noticed the stricter rule about links to other sites. I always rejected any comments that people left in my Hubs that had promotional external links to their own sites. I was always surprised to see high-ranking Hubbers allowing these types of comments in their own Hubs. I am sure they reduced their Google ranking somewhat.

I think it would be helpful if the new automatic fucntions would also reject comments with external links so Hubbers don't need to keep an eye out for that.

Anyway, thanks to all you hardworking HP staff. Your efforts are much appreciated.

Go in to edit mode. Highlight the phrase you wish to 'go blue'. Look at the edit tool bar on your text capsule. You will see a linked chain next to a broken chain. Click on the linked chain, and a new little capsule will pop up for you to place your link in.

Eh--NBD--I never used news capsules, anyway. Did not see the point. Half the time, the links would get broken, because the posting sites remove or move the articles to 'archives' and they become unavailable.

I had two hubs that now after three days are down in 46 and 41 range on score, that got warnings when I first put the title in Body Systems and Health, told me it was a FOREX site, the warning went away, the other was with just the title written telling me I was viiolating anotehr rule about something it too went away later, but both these hubs curiously have gone down instead of up which I have never had happen before, are you sure there is not a glitch in the warning in the system that might be marking these somehow?

There seems to be a problem. Iunderstood the warning email would have a complete list of problem Hubs, but yesterday I had a Hub unpublished without warning for a link to a prohibited site. It wasn't on my warning email.

I got the clear impression from the above email that if I acted on the warnings in it, I didn't need to worry any further. I'm sure you'll agree the wording (bolded) says that, so I'm sure I'm not the only one who would have that impression.

If it's not the case, and further sweeps may result in unpublishing without warning, perhaps another official announcement might be in order to clarify?

The status of these warnings is fairly time consuming to calculate and can change independently of edits to your hub, so we can not easily provide an indicator on the my account page for each of your hubs. So, you either have to manually check each hub, or you can wait a few days for the email (which is what I would recommend).

If you don't write about subjects that are either near the edge of our rules (such as gambling, alcohol, weapons, or tobacco), or that are popular with affiliate marketers (like multi-level marketing, acai berry, weight loss, cash gifting, forex, debt consolidation) then you probably don't have much to worry about in regard to the aforementioned warnings.

I wrote a hub about how to stay away from scams and multi-level marketing websites and how to better protect yourself online and am not promoting any affiliated offers and yet I got an automated warning about my hub appearing to be about multi-level marketing. Is there an appeals process? Is it wrong to write about protecting against such things?

Please read that automated warning carefully. It simply says that it appears the Hub is on multi-level marketing, and because of this, no affiliate links are allowed. If you don't have any affiliate links and your Hub is truly informative, then you have nothing to worry about.

Thanks again, just went and checked think I've stayed away from those topics so not gonna worry over much about it. You guys are simply awesome and I'm working on a strategy for a new direction with my hubs so I'm absorbing all this info.

I have been critical of the way the changes have been made and the lack of firm direction - It is nice to be able to make a favourable comment at last - this is a better approach in the way it works and the way it is presented and - well done and nice to see it

"The appearance of one of these warnings does not necessarily mean that there is a problem with your Hub."

I have a diet review that got a warning about diet supplements, but it's not about diet supplements. I had deleted "supplement" and all wordings associated with the word "supplement." But the warning does not go away.

As of this writing, I have not received any email from HP regarding this infraction. Should I just leave it be, or email HP about it.

I just went to one of my hubs and was instructed to remove several of the photos which were pixilated (Sp?). I fixed that, but was not aware of the problem with news capsules. Should I delete those on all my hubs?

I don't understand why pictures are so important on a writing site. They may as well not allow us to use pictures. I have used them prudently and cited sources, but the TEAM says try to take your own pics. Why? It's not a photography site, and sometimes it's just easier to find a legal online pic to help illustrate or brighten up your hub.

We're a site that likes to stress completely original content, both writing, pictures and other forms of content that our capsules support.

Original, directly-relevant pictures can enhance an already well-written Hub by giving it visual context. If you don't have any pictures of your own, then finding creative commons pictures and providing the right attribution is a good second choice.

A couple of days after US Panda, I visited the Squidoo forums. They were pretty happy that nothing really bad had happened. They were so happy that they announced you could now have 20 Amazon ads per page instead of 10.

Dodge a bullet, hit the gas.

This will happen to Hubpages one day soon. Show due contrition. Clean out the cr*p. Start reaping the percentage points later.

I personally hope that they will keep the crap out of here, even things do get better. The Hubpages concept is a great idea and all the idiots who copy, spam, produce weak content etc tarnish Hubpages. I am not entirely unsympathetic towards Google.

I ended up with an as-yet-unpublished hub with a warning about the subject matter. I wrote an e-mail to the address provided, and it has already been fixed. They were very quick--it was just overnight, and it was done, so they are really on the ball with this, and very cooperative.

Unfortunately, not always. I have two hubs which were unpublished and fixed weeks ago and they remain unpublished today. the good thing is that they are St Patrick's Day hubs so they would not be receiving a ton of traffic anyway....

Too bad we writers don't have a say about the advertising that appears on our hubs now with no relevant content to the subject we publish, can us the readers have a say in what Hub pages puts as advertising? I just published a new hub this morning and am pissed that there is a BIG IPAD publicity box next to my hub which has nothing to do with my hub at all!!

I am very happy to see the change in the Suggested Links Tool. I have been openly critical of the tool in the past because of its misuse by those who didn't understand how the suggestions are selected. They, of course, are the same ones who don't read directions. This is a good move. Thanks!